I agree with you. I personally will not purchase an aftermarket battery for my FZ30 after my initial experience with them. After getting an FZ20 for work, instead of getting OEM batteriest, our purchasing department got us some Power2000 batteries. First of all, the Power2000s felt different inserting them into the camera. When I tried to remove them, the spring in the camera was not strong enough to pop the battery out. I had to use something to pry it out. I tried another one and it was the same story except it was even harder to take out. I guess you could call it poor quality control. After that, I said forget about the aftermarket batteries. I convinced our purchasing dept to get some OEM batteries and have never had a problem with them. When the company decided to also purchase two FZ30s, the decision was a no-brainer - OEM all the way.
To understand what the problem was, I carefully examined the batteries and found a couple of differences. The metal contacts in the OEM batteries look slightly different from the aftermarket ones which explain the difference in friction qualities between the two. The electrical contact area on the Power2000s also seem to be on some kind of sub-assembly. There was an obvious gap between the contact sub-assembly and the rest of the battery body. On the Panasonic OEM, it looks like this part is either part of the same mold or ultrasonically welded together for a more consistent fit. In addition, the slots where the contacts reside, are ever so slightly wider on the aftermarket part. This to me is another indication of poor tolerance control in manufacturing, necessitating the bigger space. You can see this in one of the photos posted in the first thread here so it does appear that it is a knockoff.
This is by no means an attempt to convince those of you who have purchased and saved money on aftermarket batteries. To each his or her own. It's just not for me.
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